Writings From Covered Bridge

In a departure from the usual blog notes, I wanted to let people know that my husband, Brian, and I have embarked on a new adventure, and founded Covered Bridge Publishing. Though we both have spent years writing, and in some cases, publishing works of nonfiction, when I began to create fictional pieces five or six years ago, a whole new world opened up to us. The learning curve has been steep, but its net result is that we became very interested in artisanal publishing – a term we first read about in a book called APE – Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur: How to Publish a Book (http://apethebook.com). This clever and extremely helpful tome written by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch takes you step-by-step through the intricacies of self-publishing and provides numerous examples and illustrations, often through the many hotlinks they cite in their electronic book.

Artisanal or self-publishing is not for the faint of heart, so I strongly recommend reading APE and many of the other books they recommend before choosing this route. Becoming publishers is a bit daunting, but also exciting, and the benefits can be many. To mention two, your editorial control is much better, and your earnings margins can be considerably higher than those achieved through conventional publishing. On the more challenging side, you won’t have any big name publishing houses attached to your work, nor the kind of marketing power they can invoke. In fact, the bulk of the marketing effort will sit squarely in your own lap.

That said, living in an entrepreneurial country, it is possible to find help from a bevy of companies and individuals who have sprung up to assist the self-publishing segment. They include places that will help with cover design, interior design, editing and proofreading, print on demand, electronic publishing conversions, marketing, and more.

From our own experience and talking to other artisanal publishers, we have learned that people pick and choose what services they need to purchase and what they can do themselves. In any event, this is another “watch this space” as we live and learn by publishing our first book.